Four-day work weeks without a reduction in income are found to boost workers’ job satisfaction and physical and mental health, driven by enhanced work performance, lower levels of fatigue and fewer sleep problems, new research suggests. The findings, published in Nature Human Behaviour, highlight the potential for organisations and policymakers to improve employee well-being by re-evaluating workplace hours.
Initiatives that reduce working hours — such as a six-hour workday or a 20% reduction in working time — have recently been trialled around the world. For example, the 4 Day Week Global initiative has run trials in many countries, with participation from about 375 companies, to understand how a shortened work week — without a reduction in pay — can result in a better working environment.
To test the effects of the four-day work week (with no reduction in worker pay) intervention, Wen Fan, Juliet Schor and colleagues conducted six-month trials that involved 2896 employees across 141 organisations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland and the USA.
Using survey data, they compared work- and health-related indicators (including burnout, job satisfaction, mental and physical health) before and after the intervention. They also compared these outcomes with those from 285 employees at 12 companies that did not trial the intervention.
Fan and colleagues found that after the four-day work week intervention, there was a reduction in average working hours of about five hours per week. Employees with a reduction of eight hours or more per work week self-reported experiencing larger reductions in burnout and improvements in job satisfaction and mental health, as compared with those at companies that maintained a five-day workweek. Similar, though smaller, effects were observed among employees with between one and four hour and five and seven hour reductions in their work week. These benefits were partially explained by a reduced number of sleeping problems and levels of fatigue, and improved individual work ability.
The authors suggest that shorter work weeks and reduced working hours without a reduction in salary can help to improve job satisfaction and worker health.
They note that a key limitation of the study was companies self-selecting to participate, and resulted in a sample that consists predominantly of smaller companies from English-speaking countries. — Science Media Centre
